The Complete History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in U.S.. Jane Addams
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I came here, I knew the tyranny and oppression of kings; I felt it in my own person, and friends, and country; and when I came here I expected to find that freedom which is denied us at home. Our sisters in Germany have long desired freedom, but there the desire is repressed as well in man as in woman. There is no freedom there, even to claim human rights. Here they expect to find freedom of speech; here, for if we can not claim it here, where should we go for it? Here, at least, we ought to be able to express our opinions on all subjects; and yet, it would appear, there is no freedom even here to claim human rights, although the only hope in our country for freedom of speech and action, is directed to this country for illustration and example. That freedom I claim. The women of my country look to this for encouragement and sympathy; and they, also, sympathize with this cause. We hope it will go on and prosper; and many hearts across the ocean in Germany are beating in unison with those here.
Madame Anneké retired amid a great uproar, which increased when Mr. Phillips presented himself again. He persisted against frequent clamorous interruptions in his purpose to speak, and addressed the meeting as follows:
Mr. Phillips: I am not surprised at the reception I meet. (Interruption).
Mrs. Rose: As presiding officer for this evening, I call upon the police. The mayor, too, promised to see that our meetings should not be disturbed, and I now call upon him to preserve order. As citizens of New York, we have a right to this protection, for we pay our money for it. My friends, keep order, and then we shall know who the disturbers are.
Mr. Phillips: You are making a better speech than I can, by your conduct. This is proof positive of the necessity of this Convention. The time has been when other Conventions have been met like this—with hisses. (Renewed hisses). Go on with your hisses; geese have hissed before now. If it be your pleasure to argue the question for us, by proving that the men here, at least, are not fit for exercising political rights. (Great uproar).
Mrs. Rose: I regret that I have again to call upon the police to keep order; and if they are not able to do it, I call upon the meeting to help them.
Mr. Phillips: You prove one thing to-night, that the men of New York do not understand the meaning of civil liberty and free discussion.
Antoinette Brown made an attempt to speak, but soon ceased amidst the most indescribable uproar. Mr. Elliott then jumped upon the platform, and harangued the audience as a representative of the rowdies, though he claimed for himself great fairness and respectability. He said:
If taxation without representation be robbery, then robbery is right, and I am willing to be robbed. For twelve years I have paid taxes; and here and in other countries I have, in return, got protection. Robbery is, to take away property forcibly without giving an equivalent for it; but a good equivalent is given for taxation. In this and other countries, the property of individuals is taken from them, as when an owner of land is deprived of it by the State to make a railroad through it; that is no robbery; an equivalent is given, and the owner is fairly dealt by. We have heard many instances of the tyranny inflicted on women; but is that a reason that they should vote? If it be, minors, who are under a double tyranny, that of father and mother—
Here the audience seemed to have lost all patience, and Mr. Elliott's voice was completely drowned in the uproar. He retired, repeating that he had proved the rowdies were not all on one side. The confusion now reached its climax. A terrific uproar, shouting, yelling, screaming, bellowing, laughing, stamping, cries of "Burleigh," "Root," "Truth," "Shut up," "Take a drink," "Greedey," etc., prevented anything orderly being heard, and the Convention, on the motion of Mrs. Rose, was adjourned sine die; the following resolution having first been read by Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, and passed without dissent:
Resolved, That the members of this Convention, and the audience assembled, tender their thanks to Lucretia Mott for the grace, firmness, ability, and courtesy with which she has discharged her important and often arduous duties.
Daily Tribune, Sept. 8, 1853.
WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION:—Meeting At The Tabernacle.
Evening Session.—Tremendous uproar—close of the Convention. Yesterday evening being the last sitting of this Convention, the approach to the Tabernacle was thronged long before the hour for opening the doors, and considerable excitement seemed to prevail. At about seven o'clock the Tabernacle doors were thrown open, and the rush for tickets and admission to the anxious throng could only be equalled by that of a Jenny Lind night. The building, capable of holding some 2,000 persons, was immediately filled to excess, and the principal promoters of the movement took their places on the platform.... Mr. George W. Clark, who had been requested to sing a song on "Freedom of Thought," did so in a style apparently not much approved by the audience, who at a very early stage began to give vent to all kinds of groans and ironical cheers.
Mrs. Martin, of this State, was then introduced, and with considerable difficulty began her address.
(Cries—"No! no!" and tremendous yells and laughter). "Time's up," "That'll do." (Loud hisses, groans, laughter, tigers, and demoniac sounds from the galleries). Cries of "Phillips! Phillips." (Hisses and yells).
Tribune, Sept. 9, 1853.
We do not know whether any of the gentlemen who have succeeded in breaking up the Woman's Rights Convention, or of the other gentlemen who have succeeded in three sessions at Metropolitan Hall in silencing a regularly appointed and admitted delegate, will ever be ashamed of their passion and hostility, but we have little doubt that some of them will live to understand their own folly. At any rate, they have accomplished a very different thing from what they now suppose. For if it had been their earnest desire to strengthen the cause of Woman's Rights, they could not have done the work half so effectively. Nothing is so good for a weak and unpopular movement as this sort of opposition. Had Antoinette Brown been allowed to speak at Metropolitan Hall, her observations would certainly have occupied but a fraction of the time now wasted, and would have had just the weight proper to their sense and appropriateness, and no more. But instead of this the World's Convention was disturbed and its orators silenced. The consequences will be the mass of people throughout the country who might otherwise not know of its existence, will have their attention called and their sympathies enlisted in its behalf. So, too, when Antoinette Brown is put down by Rev. John Chambers and his colleagues, and denied what is her clear right as a member of the Temperance Convention by a vociferous mob, composed, we are sorry to say, very largely of clergymen, every impartial person sees that she is surrounded with a prestige and importance which, whatever her talents as a speaker, she could hardly hope to have attained. Many who question the propriety of woman's appearing in public, will revolt at the gagging of one who had a right to speak and claimed simply to use it on a proper occasion. There is in the public mind of this country an intuitive love of fair play and free speech, and those who outrage it for any purpose of their own merely reinforce their opponents, and bestow a mighty power on the ideas they hate and fain would suppress.
Tribune, Sept. 12, 1853.
Arguments pro and con. The meetings at the Tabernacle Tuesday and Wednesday last, exhibited some features not often paralleled in the progress of any public agitation for the redress of grievances, or the vindication of rights. The advocates of an enlargement of the allotted sphere of woman, had hired the house, paid the advertising and other expenses, gathered at their own expense from their distant homes, and taken all the responsibilities of the outlay, yet they offered and desired throughout to surrender their own platform for one-half of the time, to any respectable and capable antagonists who should see fit to appear and attempt to show why their demands were not just and their grievances real. Consequently, though they are engaged in a struggle, not only against numbers and power, and fashion and immemorial custom, but with the Pulpit and the Press actively and bitterly leading and spurring on their antagonists, and with no access to the public ear but from the public platform, we consider this proposition more than liberal—it was chivalric and generous. We listened with interest to some of the arguments pro and con, and propose here to recapitulate their substance, that our readers may see at a glance the present position and bearing of the controversy. We will begin with the first speech we heard, that of
Rev. Wm. H. Channing: They say the public